Economy
Some people have potted plants on their front porches. Others have rocking chairs or benches. Walk onto the porch of Jessie Mae Brown’s East Oakland home on any given day and you’re likely to be stepping around 100-pound bags of onions and potatoes or bins of apples and carrots—all fresh for the taking.
Michael Pandolfo’s childhood comic store was dark, dingy, and intimidating. He remembers the shop was full of the condescending comic book fans he calls “rules lawyers”—comic book experts who show disdain for non-experts. It wasn’t a welcoming place for any but the most shunned, resentful reader. This old store, where he bought his first issues of Conan the Barbarian, loomed large in his mind when he opened his own comic shop Dr. Comics & Mr. Games on Piedmont Avenue in…
The Old Navy store in the Bay Street shopping complex near the border of Oakland and Emeryville ended Black Friday with holiday pajamas on the wrong racks, graphic t-shirts on the floor and “Diva” jeans falling off of their shelves. As the day of sales came to a close, employees were preparing for a weekend of more frantic shoppers looking for deals.
Shoppers looking for an alternative to the post-Thanksgiving melee of Black Friday will find one in Oakland. A strong “shop local” push has developed in the city over the past few years, and this year’s day-after-T-Day campaign is the biggest yet.
You’ve cleared the table, done the dishes, and your relatives have left town. Now what to do with all that leftover turkey? Oakland North visited four restaurants around Oakland to find culinary inspiration from around the world for all that Thanksgiving turkey sitting in your fridge.
One by one, in the pre-dawn darkness Tuesday, delivery trucks exited Oakland’s 980 freeway at Adeline and headed toward Middle Harbor Road, prepared to pick up or drop off shipments at the Port of Oakland. Each truck came to a halt as the drivers faced picketers blocking the entrance to the international container terminals at the Port.
The Oaktown Spice Shop, at 530 Grand Avenue across from Lake Merritt, is gearing up for Thanksgiving with holiday spice blends and gift boxes…
Inside the gym of the Rainbow Recreation Center, on 58th Avenue in East Oakland, the lights dim and a PowerPoint begins. Thirteen people are in attendance—another six will filter in during the presentation—for AC Transit’s presentation about the stations for its $174 million Bus Rapid Transit project, which will run from downtown San Leandro to downtown Oakland beginning in 2016. It’s another round in a series of neighborhood meetings this month, in which the rapid transit planners are inviting East…
Many undocumented immigrants in Oakland, and nationally, do not have official identification that is accepted by police, banks or even some healthcare centers. But under a program expected to get underway this winter, Oakland has joined a handful of cities in creating a municipal ID—with one apparently unprecedented new component. Oakland’s Muni ID, if all goes according to plan, will also be usable as a debit card.